Book Review: Who the Hell's In It: Portraits and Conversations

(Bought at a used bookstore near Hudson, NY for 50 cents): Peter Bogdanovich’s 2004 collection of profiles and interviews of 25 film stars is a total delight. Even at almost 500 pages, it’s a fun, fast read. The author has worked with most of the subjects as a director (Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, Sidney Poitier), or had long, admiring friendships with them (Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart). He analyzes their style and appeal with precision and objectivity, though he goes a bit overboard on Jerry Lewis, devoting 70 pages to the manic comic director-producer-writer-clown. Lewis was never one of my favorite, but Bogdanovich’s profile offers explanations of his juvenile appeal and surprising masterful technical mastery behind the camera. Many of the pieces had appeared in journals and there is some overlap in stories. Several include the tantalizing prospect of a Western to be directed by Bogdanovich, written by Larry McMurtry and starring John Wayne, Stewart and Henry Fonda. When the project failed to materialize, McMurtry turned his screenplay into the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove and continued with many prequels and sequels.   

I most enjoyed the snapshots of the stars at work. An on-set visit to Jack Lemmon during the filming of Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce was my favorite for its intimate capturing of the actor’s day-to-day life. I just viewed Bogdanovich’s first film Targets and his portrait of its star Boris Karloff takes us into the changes in Los Angeles, the movies and the actor’s checkered career. The recent death of Gena Rowlands gave the chapter on her husband John Cassavetes an added melancholy and a strong desire to rewatch their quirky, intense films.

The volume is bracketed with portraits of two screen goddesses of different eras and influences whom the author briefly encountered in real life: Lillian Gish and Marilyn Monroe. Gish was the first movie incarnation of innocence and Monroe the last avatar of sexiness in the Hollywood studio system. Both chapters give us the director’s insights into what the movies give us and how its stars filled our dreams.

Like his hero Orson Welles, Bogdanovich never quite recaptured the stunning success of his first feature (The Last Picture Show, one of my favorite movies), but this book imparts his lifelong love of cinema and its stars. 

Note: The American edition is subtitled Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Stars. I bought the British edition which is subtitled simply Portraits and Conversations. Instead of William Holden and Audrey Hepburn on the cover, mine has Marilyn Monroe in the Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The Films of 1971

There are many books, articles and essays on particular years in film designated as seminal or highly influential. 1939 is seen as the zenith of the Golden Age of the Hollywood Studios. Several volumes have been published on 1967 as the harbinger of the independent film. I just saw a book on Amazon about 1991 as an important year. For me, 1971 was probably the watershed in movie appreciation. Many of the films I either saw that year or that were released then and I saw later, had special significance for me. Some were the work of my favorite directors who were at their peak artistically (Altman, Bogdanovich, Kubrick). Some expressed the transition from childhood into the beginning of maturity. Some deal with frank sexuality. The Oscar ceremony honoring that year's films (held in 1972) were the first Academy Awards I can remember being allowed to stay up and watch until the end. 

Timothy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman in
The Last Picture Show

My most significant 1971 movie was The Last Picture Show. Though Peter Bogdanovich's sensitive study of life in a tiny Texas town lost the Best Picture Oscar to William Friedkin's intense, jagged police procedural The French Connection, it did receive 8 nominations and won for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.  Picture Show was Bogdanovich's big breakthrough and was hailed as the greatest film by a young director since Citizen Kane. I was only 12 at the time of its release and I knew I wanted to see it. Maybe because of the cast which included Cloris Leachman, who I knew and loved for her role on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Maybe because it had received such spectacular reviews and I wanted to see a grown-up film. But the movie was rated R and an adult had to accompany me. (They don't still have those ratings, do they?) My dad agreed to take me and though there were some explicit nude and sex scenes, I understood the gist of the film and appreciated its themes of desolation and loneliness. We saw it at the Gateway Cinema near King of Prussia, PA and I can recall the manager asking my father if he knew the nature of the film and that it was for mature audiences. My dad said he understood and that it was okay for me to see it. So I am grateful to him for indulging me and deeming me mature.